Questing & Dynamic Events
The studio came up with something it calls "hubless" design to combat this problem. Instead of the typical questing design that MMO players intuitively recognize - go to town, pick up quests, complete quests, return to town for reward - The Elder Scrolls Online aims to allow players to enjoy whatever piques their interest as they wander the world, so long as you are appropriately leveled.
The Elder Scrolls is bringing back a much-beloved feature that has largely disappeared from modern MMOs: public dungeons. These caves, ruins, and such are designed in much the same way as the private instanced dungeons in recent MMOs like World of Warcraft and Star Wars: The Old Republic. The difference is that they're not segregated from the regular world like those areas; the entire point is to create spaces that encourage players to organically group up and work together.
Combat & The Trinity
The stamina bar is the fulcrum around which the entire combat design revolves. The opportunity to sprint, block, interrupt, and break incapacitating effects by using the stamina resource lends a new dimension to the decisions you make in combat.
Stamina management will be a key component of player skill when the fighting gets intense.
Another facet of giving players universal access to these powerful defensive capabilities is a moderate break from the traditional tank/healer/damage "holy trinity" of MMOs. Zenimax Online intends for any five reasonably skilled players to be able to form a group capable of clearing most content.
Players have a small standard MMO hotbar on which they slot a handful of skills freely outside of combat. The limitation on the number of skills available at one time mostly does away with the concept of skill "rotations" that much of the class design of an MMO like World of Warcraft is built on.
... though Zenimax confirmed the game is class-based instead of using the free-form character progression of Skyrim. The currently equipped weapon determines the light and heavy attacks that take up the first two slots, players choose another few class abilities they've unlocked, and the final slot is taken up by an ultimate ability that can be activated only after building up "finesse".
A more dramatic way to build finesse is to combo your skills with yourself or friendly players. One example Zenimax Online shared is a rogue-type character dropping an oil slick on the ground to slow enemies, which can then be set ablaze with fire magic for serious damage potential. Another combo the studio showed off has a fighter running into a firestorm dropped by a friendly mage and activating his spinning whirlwind attack, which turns into an inferno cyclone shooting deadly fireballs in all directions.
PvP & WvW
Instanced, balanced PvP arenas await players who prefer the e-sport side of MMOs.
The most significant point of differentiation between this game and other modern MMOs, however, is the open world, free-form, faction-versus-faction PvP.
The majority of the central province of Cyrodiil is the battleground for endgame PvP, ... Dotted with forts, farms, mines, castles, and other valuable points to conquer, Cyrodiil burns with eternal conflict.
When there are three sides, I always know something is happening.
Players intimidated by the idea of charging into a furious melee can hang out in the back and fire siege weapons, which can crush the walls of a fortress into rubble. The defenders' trebuchets are aiming for your allies...
Smaller targets, like farms and mines, give smaller groups something to do beyond being part of a massive keep-assaulting horde. These more intimate points of interest have perhaps a single flag to conquer and a bare few NPC guards assisting any defenders.
Travel
| Wayshrines enable the fast travel system and also serve as resurrection points. You can teleport from a wayshrine to any other wayshrine you've discovered, ...
Facebook
Twitter